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In case you haven’t noticed, climbing memes are SHRN. Less than six months ago, an Instagram account called Rawk Tawk started posting climbing memes commenting on and lampooning various goings on in the climbing scene. They have already garnered more than 12,000 followers. Another climbing meme account, Rockclimbingprobs, has cultivated similar visibility. My friend Brendan ocassionally has fun with climbing and outdoor memes on his blog.

Like emoji and animated GIFs, memes have become a staple of internet communication. At their best, they offer biting, hilariously accurate micro-insights into life, luck, and human nature; at their worst, they’re dumb and don’t make any sense. Most fall somewhere in the middle, causing us to LOL due to their purposeful inanity and shallow humor.

Side note: what I’m calling memes here are more accurately referred to as “image macros,” a subset of internet memes comprised of “captioned images that typically consist of a picture and a witty message or a catchphrase.” The images overtop of which people write text often grow to become popular internet memes, such as Good Guy Greg, Bad Luck Brian, and Ermahgerd Girl. But “meme” is far more commonly used and understood than “image macro” and for our purposes here will do just fine.

All that said, here’s how you, too, can create a climbing meme in four easy steps:

1. Find a picture

You can source a climbing-specific picture if you like, but it’s not necessary. Some of the funniest climbing memes use the same stock images as memes of a more general ilk. If you want to use one of the web’s many popular meme characters, you can use the tool on imgflip.com or other meme-generating sites. If you choose to create your own meme, be sure to use the right font: Impact, in white with a black outline. Here’s a tutorial on how to do it right, because Sharma forbid you use Futura or Comic Sans—that would be embarrassing.

2. Think of something funny that only climbers understand

The thing that makes a good climbing meme is that it speaks in a code that climbers will understand. For example, that guy at the gym (maybe it’s you?!) who just can’t keep his sequence straight, or the fun that isn’t when you’re waiting in isolation at a climbing competition, or the special padding needed for a certain well-known crag. It’s a fine line though. Get too specific or too personal and you’re bound to lose people. But maybe that’s OK—better to slay it with a niche audience than bore the masses.

3. Write funny thing over top of picture

The typical meme uses two lines of text, one at the top and one at the bottom of the image. In this configuration, the top line is the set-up and the bottom line the delivery. Of course, it’s not necessary to structure your memes this way. Some only have one line of text, others multiple, others no text at all. The most important thing is that the image and the words must clearly connect and reinforce each other in some way. A weak or simplistic connection between the image content and the tone of the words will result in a fail.

4. Post to internets

This part is important. Memes are like genes; ones adapted to their environments will replicate and flourish. But to spread they need a medium. Thus, the interweb, with its billions-strong reach. When you make a meme on a site like imgflip, it becomes public (unless you choose to keep it private) at which point users can up or down-vote it, increasing or decreasing visibility. Social sites and forums like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, mountainproject.com further help your meme spread (replication), where others may riff on it (mutation). Or not. It’s important to remember that your meme, while it may seem a precious nugget of genius to your biased eye, is probably not that funny to other people. That’s OK—memes are free and easy to make, and as with anything, practice makes perfect.

As for the why of climbing memes? That’s something you’ll have to answer for yourself. Good luck…